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DAILY ALERT
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Thursday, July 31, 2025 | ||
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Two resolutions that would have blocked arms sales to Israel in response to civilian casualties in Gaza were blocked in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday by 73 to 24 and 70 to 27. The resolutions would have blocked the sale of $675 million in bombs and shipments of 20,000 assault rifles. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Hamas was to blame for the situation in Gaza. "It is in the interest of America and the world to see this terrorist group destroyed." (Reuters) The U.S. must agree to compensate Iran for losses incurred during the June war, the Islamic republic's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told the Financial Times. "They have to ensure that they are not going to repeat that [the attacks] and they have to compensate [Iran for] the damage that they have done." Two days before brokering a ceasefire, Washington bombed Iran's two main uranium enrichment sites, Fordow and Natanz, and fired missiles at a separate plant in Isfahan, severely damaging facilities that Tehran spent billions of dollars on. Araghchi said a third, new enrichment plant near Isfahan - which Tehran had days before the conflict said would be activated in response to censure by the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors - was also attacked. It is the first time Iran has acknowledged the site was struck. (Financial Times-UK) Much of the food aid entering Gaza is being hoarded by gangs and merchants and sold at exorbitant prices. Bags of flour in markets often bear UN logos, while other packaging indicates it came from the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - all originally handed out for free. Mohammed Abu Taha, who lives in a tent with his wife and child near Rafah, said organized gangs of young men are always at the front of crowds when he visits GHF sites. "It's a huge business," he said. A man in his 30s said he had visited GHF sites 40 times since they opened and nearly always came back with food. He sold most of it to merchants or others in order to buy other necessities for his family. Heba Jouda, who has visited the sites many times, said armed men steal aid as people return with it and merchants also offer to buy it. "To get food from the American organization, you have to be strong and fast," she said. The UN's deliveries also often devolve into deadly violence and chaos, with crowds of thousands rapidly overwhelming trucks. (AP) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
A senior Israeli defense official said Wednesday that the volume of humanitarian aid entering Gaza has greatly increased, citing both the need to reach vulnerable populations and to counter "false famine narratives" circulating globally. The official said Hamas's campaign accusing Israel of starving the Gaza population has impacted political decision-making and shaped aid policies aimed at calming the situation and signaling responsiveness. Since May 19, 5,000 aid trucks have entered Gaza, the official said, including 1.5 million weekly food packages distributed by an American company and 3,000 tons of baby food. Three water pipelines into Gaza remain operational, and a power line was recently reactivated to the central UNICEF desalination plant. Currently, about 200 aid trucks enter Gaza daily. Israeli officials believe Hamas is not genuinely interested in reaching a ceasefire agreement, operating instead under the assumption that international pressure will force Israel's hand. They argue that the influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza, following Israel's "strategic concession," has only emboldened Hamas, which continues to present far-reaching demands. (Ynet News) See also IDF Details Expansive Israeli Humanitarian Operation in Gaza - Felice Friedson (Media Line-Jerusalem Post) From an IDF outpost inside Lebanon, one can see the empty Shiite villages whose residents have fled. Widows and the many wounded Hizbullah fighters have been told they will no longer receive their usual stipends. The IDF is operating from the air and on the ground to thwart Hizbullah's attempts at rebuilding, but the group is not resting. Hizbullah has drawn up plans for a limited cross-border infiltration to abduct Israeli soldiers and civilians. Maj.-Gen. Uri Gordin, commander of the Northern Command, has prepared a system of "forward defense" that includes five IDF outposts located inside Lebanese territory as a first line of defense. Beyond them, a ground barrier is under construction to prevent incursions by vehicles, ATVs, or on foot. A network of IDF outposts and tank positions along the border and within Israeli territory, bolstered by sophisticated sensors, is designed to intercept anyone approaching the fence. According to Gordin, 70% of Hizbullah's military capabilities - including its rocket arrays, command, and control systems - have been rendered inoperable. The elite Radwan force has been cut in half. Still, Hizbullah is racing to rebuild and is preparing to carry out a ground assault inside Israel. The arrangement whereby the IDF enforces the ceasefire mainly from the air, but also via ground operations, is made possible because an American general chairs the oversight committee. Israel's ultimate goal remains the full disarmament of Hizbullah and its elimination as an armed player in Lebanon. (Ynet News) In the second biggest acquisition ever of an Israeli company, cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks has confirmed that it is acquiring Israeli cybersecurity company CyberArk Software in a deal with an equity value of $25 billion. (Globes) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
The Gaza War To accuse Israel of crimes it demonstrably has not committed is defamatory, with serious consequences for Jewish communities worldwide. The accusation that Israel is using "starvation as a weapon of war" has circulated since the outset. Yet the facts tell a different story. Social media has footage of thousands of food pallets that Israel had cleared but hadn't been collected by the UN and international aid agencies on the Gazan side of the border. Only after Israel released images of these massive supplies baking in the sun did those same agencies suddenly manage to collect over 270 trucks in just two days. Those calling for Israel to simply end the war must reckon with the likelihood that this would not secure the release of all hostages. It is doubtful Hamas would have released the 148 hostages during the two previous truces without sustained military pressure. The remaining hostages - and the two million Gazans under Hamas's rule - are the jihadists' insurance policy. That's why they may never give up every last captive. Ending the war unilaterally would also preserve Hamas's rule. It would give Hamas time to regroup, rearm, and plan the next invasion. (Jewish Chronicle-UK) Anyone who supports getting more food to people in Gaza must also ask tough questions of the UN. The UN itself reports that 87% of its 2,010 food trucks in Gaza from May 19-July 29 were "intercepted" - either peacefully by crowds or forcefully by armed actors. That's not an Israeli claim. That's a UN admission as per the UN website (UNOPS). Time for real journalistic scrutiny. The writer is Director of the Program on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (X) The IDF on Tuesday released a video of Hamas terrorists looting humanitarian aid in Gaza on July 25. "Contrary to Hamas's false claims that the individuals in the video are security personnel, they are in fact Hamas terrorists who arrived to seize the aid from Gaza's residents," the IDF said. "Even when aid is delivered into Gaza, Hamas loots it for its own use, blatantly disregarding the needs of the population." The video was released days after the New York Times claimed that there was no evidence to suggest that Hamas routinely stole humanitarian aid. (Jerusalem Post) Over the weekend, I embedded with the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, where I saw the enormous quantities of humanitarian aid the UN has been refusing to distribute. What struck me were the thousands of pounds of baby food, baking under the Middle Eastern sun - jar after jar of mashed carrots, pureed potatoes and fruit blends that could have gone to children. I stood surrounded by nearly 600 trucks worth of food, water and diapers, all ready to be delivered. The UN refused to do the job, saying it couldn't operate safely with Israeli protection. Instead it asked that security be provided by the "Gaza Blue Police" - a euphemism for Hamas's internal security forces. In addition, the UN has declined to cooperate with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, despite its backing by the U.S. The result is that food meant for children is left to rot. (Wall Street Journal) The IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) on Thursday documented yet another case of Hamas using children with genetic illnesses to falsely depict famine in Gaza. The image of Abad Qader Al-Fayoumi, 14, was circulated online in recent days with claims that his deteriorating health was caused by hunger. However, Israeli defense officials said medical records show that Abad was treated in Israel in 2018 for a genetic neurological condition. "Abad was one of hundreds of Gazan children treated in Israeli hospitals in recent years." (Ynet News) Journalist David Collier revealed that the ubiquitous image of the Palestinian boy's skeletal frame in his mother's arms - used by nearly every major news organization as the living representation of the mass starvation of Gazan children - was in fact a child suffering from cerebral palsy and hypoxemia, plus a genetic disorder. It also does not appear to be the case that, as reported, the boy's father was killed by the IDF while looking for food. Videos and contemporaneous reports strongly suggest the father was killed while looking for Israeli soldiers to engage in battle. Where Gaza is different is in the desire by global information institutions to lie and for otherwise intelligent people to embrace those lies, because it's less stressful and less lonely to live in an online world where the Israelis are always monsters and the truth is treated as a distraction. The truth is that Hamas has engineered real suffering in Gaza, and the lie - that Israel is intentionally starving children - enables Hamas to engineer more suffering by creating global pressure on Israel to let Hamas control the aid again. It matters who is at fault because pro-Palestinian advocates read stories like this and then take it upon themselves to avenge the injustice with violence against Jews pretty much everywhere in the past year. Why was the photo of the Palestinian child published and shared everywhere in the first place? And why will the next one be shared, and the one after that? Pointing to a suffering child and saying "the Jews did this" when in fact the Jews did no such thing is an intentional act. (Commentary) Gaza has been transformed: Rafah on the Egyptian border no longer exists, neither above nor below ground. Much of Khan Yunis, except for a sensitive area and a humanitarian zone, has met a similar fate. In northern Gaza, from Beit Hanoun through Beit Lahia and Al-Atatra to the outskirts of Gaza City, little remains. The transformation is evident to anyone entering Gaza, but more importantly, residents of Israel's border communities, looking toward Gaza, see the threat once facing them removed. (Ynet News) Israeli Security Israel is embroiled in an asymmetric media battle in which terrorists cry foul after launching unprovoked attacks, and the international community rushes to scold the one democracy in the Middle East for daring to defend itself. Israel's new doctrine must be stated clearly: Any terror organization that attacks Israel will be annihilated, no matter how long it takes. This isn't about deterrence anymore. It's about ensuring that no group can fire rockets at Israeli civilians, butcher families, kidnap children and expect restraint in response. Moreover, any civilian population that knowingly harbors and enables such terror groups must understand the consequences of complicity. If terror embeds itself in neighborhoods, schools and hospitals, the blame for the fallout lies first and foremost with those who let it happen. The same countries that lecture Israel about humanitarian law have done absolutely nothing to ease Palestinian suffering by offering to take in civilians from Gaza. Their silence reveals an ugly truth: These nations do not care about Palestinians. They care only about blaming Israel. This selective outrage sends a message to terror groups worldwide: You can start wars, lose them badly and then weaponize global sympathy by playing the victim. No other country in the world is asked to absorb missile fire, kidnappings or mass murder and respond with diplomacy. Why wouldn't terror groups attack and take hostages if all the international community winds up doing is turning the oppressors into the victims? (JNS) Recognizing a Palestinian State If France and the UK proceed with their proposed unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state in the current climate, they will not be advancing peace. They will, instead, be throwing a political lifeline to Hamas, and triggering a hardened Israeli refusal to contemplate any future territorial concessions - precisely the opposite of what they intend. Recognition now would suggest that the most barbaric terrorism in the region's history - the Oct. 7 massacre, which sparked the current war - has been rewarded. And that would all but guarantee that peace is postponed indefinitely. Hamas is a low-intensity insurgency that thrives on ideology and despair. While the group has been devastated militarily over the course of the war, it can still rebuild - if it's able to once again establish a strong hold on any part of the Palestinian imagination. Recognition of a state now will make sure it does exactly that. The dangerous narrative that the Oct. 7 massacre was a necessary step will be enshrined. And that would be fatal not only to Israel's sense of security, but to any hope of a two-state solution. Israelis have seen what came out of Gaza, and they will never risk a repeat performance from the hilltops of the West Bank. So long as Hamas exists as an armed and popular force, no Israeli government will agree to further land withdrawals, no matter the economic sanctions and global isolation that might ensue. Nearly 150 countries have already recognized a Palestinian state. It has changed nothing, because the preconditions for a real state do not yet exist: There are no defined borders, as well as no unified government and no monopoly on force. The Palestinian Authority, nominally in charge of the West Bank, is weak, corrupt, and marginalized. France and the UK adding their imprimatur to this movement, without decisive plans for the removal of Hamas, will bring it no closer to fruition. Palestinian dignity and rights cannot be advanced by rewarding factions that reject peace and celebrate mass murder. Israelis cannot feel secure while Hamas holds any power in the region. Many of those opposed to Palestinian statehood are not racists or zealots. They are terrified. And until that fear is addressed, they will not budge. Recognition now is surrender to the Palestinians' worst enemy - Hamas. The writer is former chief editor of the Associated Press in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. (Forward) The French President declared that France would officially recognize a Palestinian state, much to the delight of the Islamist terrorist group Hamas. Such a decision would have exceptionally dangerous repercussions not only for Israelis but for the West as a whole. Recognizing a Palestinian state in a post-Oct. 7 reality would be nothing less than a reward for terrorism. Islamist extremists are watching closely and the signal that they are receiving is that their violent tactics yield positive results for them in the West. Recognition would be utter folly - terrorism should be eliminated, not encouraged. What concessions are those who call for recognition asking for from the Palestinians in return? Nothing. Our 50 hostages, still languishing in the torturous terror dungeons of Gaza, will not be released. Hamas will continue to be the governing authority in Gaza. It really would be a masterclass in futile diplomacy. The tragic reality is that Israel does not have, and never has had, a genuine Palestinian partner for peace. The history of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process reads as a timeline of missed opportunities for Palestinian statehood due to Palestinian rejectionism and their refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state within any borders. The last thing the world needs is another failed state. With corruption, jihadi extremists, power vacuums, radicalism, Iranian interference, and a plethora of armed terrorist groups, a Palestinian state would have all the ingredients of a would-be failed state. In the post-Oct. 7 reality that Israelis are living in, what security guarantees are being given to us for our legitimate concerns? I have yet to hear a viable answer. The writer is the Ambassador of Israel to the United Kingdom. (Telegraph-UK) French President Macron's announcement is the first time in diplomatic history that a French president has recognized the existence of a sovereign state despite the fact that its territory is undefined, its borders have never been recognized by the UN Security Council, and its population remains ruled by two separate governments, one of which represents a declared terrorist organization. In this context, he has openly violated international conventions. French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing's France was the first Western country to open a PLO diplomatic office in Paris in 1975. Francois Mitterrand saved Yasser Arafat and his troops during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982 and received him at the Elysee Palace. How can we blame Macron for following his predecessors? To combat the deception and isolation of the State of Israel in the international arena, we must react intelligently and calmly. We suggest recalling Israel's ambassador to Paris for consultation on the next steps. This action is significant in diplomatic relations between two, so-called, friendly and allied countries. It expresses a clear disavowal and dissatisfaction with an unjustified and incomprehensible French policy on all points. The writer, a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, is a former Foreign Ministry senior adviser who was Israel's first ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. (Israel Hayom) Under the 1933 Montevideo Convention, recognition of statehood is a legal status that requires a permanent population, defined territory, a functioning government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. There are no agreed-upon borders. The often-cited pre-1967 lines have been rejected by Palestinian leaders in multiple rounds of negotiations. Hamas claims all of Israel as Palestinian territory. There is no unified government. The Palestinian Authority controls parts of Judea and Samaria through a decaying, unelected administration. Hamas governs Gaza with violence and repression. The two factions operate separate legal systems and have not held national elections in nearly twenty years. Both factions institutionalize and glorify terrorism. The Palestinian Authority's "pay to slay" law rewards convicted terrorists and their families with salaries funded in part by foreign aid. No political entity that celebrates murder can meet the standards of statehood. Recognition now would reward massacre with legitimacy. It would signal to other actors that sovereignty can be claimed through atrocity, that hostage-taking is an acceptable bargaining tactic, and that genocide is negotiable if framed in political terms. Oct. 7 would become a roadmap, not a red line. Sovereignty requires more than grievance. It requires a commitment to reject violence and live in peace with neighbors. Recognizing a Palestinian state now would destroy any incentive for reform. It would entrench division, glorify terror, and sideline those seeking genuine coexistence. This is not a diplomatic breakthrough. It is appeasement. And appeasement in the face of evil is how democracies fall. Michal Cotler-Wunsh, a former Israeli Knesset member, is Israel's special envoy for combatting antisemitism. John Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. (X) Israel and the New York Times The New York Times amended its article that detailed starvation in Gaza on Tuesday to include that the child featured on its front page, Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, had a preexisting medical condition that impacts his appearance, citing "new information, including from the hospital that treated [Mutawaq] and his medical records." Israeli Consul General in New York Ofir Akunis said, "It's unfortunate that the international media repeatedly falls for Hamas propaganda. First they publish, then they verify, if at all." Israel shared an additional photo of Mutawaq, who suffers from cerebral palsy, together with his mother and brother, who appear healthy. (Jerusalem Post) See also New York Times Clarifies Misleading Image of Gaza Child Claimed to Be Starving (Ynet News) This week the New York Times gave the world a painful lesson in how an explosive narrative can travel far and wide while a quiet correction barely leaves the room. The Times published a Gaza feature dominated by a heartbreaking photograph of an emaciated toddler cradled in his mother's arms. The caption stated that the child was suffering from severe malnutrition. The story instantly became a symbol of Gaza's suffering. Only later did physicians clarify that the child had been born with profound neurological and muscular disorders that left him unable to swallow food properly. His condition was tragic, but it was not the result of wartime shortages. The Times eventually added an editor's note acknowledging the pre-existing illnesses. The correction appeared solely on @NYTimesPR, a lightly followed public-relations feed, not on the main @nytimes account that launched the original story to tens of millions. The updated note reached about 1/6 of 1% of the audience that absorbed the first version. The paper did correct the record, but it whispered where it once shouted. Professional integrity demands a proportionate response. If a headline ran on page one, the correction belongs on page one. If a story was blasted to every social-media follower, the clarification should follow precisely the same route, with the same visibility. Modern conflicts are fought as fiercely on the battlefield of public opinion as on any physical front. One photo of an apparently starving child can become a moral cudgel yielding headlines and even votes in international forums. When that image is later revealed to be only half the story, the damage is already entrenched. By omitting critical medical context in the first place and then opting for a low-profile correction, the Times reinforced suspicions that it privileges narratives of Israeli culpability. (Jerusalem Post) A New York Times front-page story on July 25 featured an emaciated baby in Gaza - who suffered not from starvation but from a genetic disease. On Instagram, the story has 364K likes and 118K shares, on a NYT page with 19.3 million followers. It's still there - with no correction. During July 21-28, 2025, the Times published 31 headlines regarding the alleged Israeli-generated starvation, killing, and "genocide" in Gaza. The word "Hamas" was mentioned in only four headlines, without a single hint at any Hamas violence or questionable behavior. It would be hard to blame a person who still sees the NYT as a reliable source for Middle East affairs for misunderstanding the situation or for the anger they would feel toward Israel. From Hamas's perspective, this is exactly what a victory of perceptions looks like. It's okay to report a humanitarian crisis, but as a part of the whole story, with balanced information about all the relevant actors. The urge to blame it all on Israel while omitting critical reports about Hamas is unprofessional - it's beyond bias. It's withholding information about a designated terror organization. (Jerusalem Post) Israel and the West Gaza has been engulfed by war for nearly two years. Why are there still women and children in Gaza? Have we become blind to what a grotesque and preposterous situation this is? Women and children leave warzones. That's the one nod to civilization man makes even in the hell of war. Almost eight million souls have fled Ukraine since Russia's invasion, most of them women and children. Around seven million Syrians fled fighting over the past decade. The jarring truth is that they are there because the moral institutions of the West have all but forbidden their fleeing. This is the first war in my lifetime where women and children leaving the warzone has been actively discouraged by the West's opinion-setters. In most wars, humankind fervently does everything it can to facilitate the fleeing of the innocent. We recognize that flows of refugees are tragic but necessary, displacement being infinitely preferable to death. In this war, uniquely, the opposite calculation has been made: that the risk of death is less atrocious for Gazans than displacement. When Israeli officials propose the temporary displacement of civilians from Gaza as the war rages, they are instantly condemned for "genocidal" thinking, for lusting after "ethnic cleansing." Why is it "seeking refuge" when Ukrainians are forced to flee their homeland by Russia, but "ethnic cleansing" if Gazans were to flee as a consequence of this infernal war Hamas started? What motors this delirious, even murderous hostility to "outflows" of Gazans? It's simple: hatred for Israel. Palestinians are dying as a consequence of the anti-Israel bigotry of Western institutions. Palestinians are being deprived of the essential right to asylum that is enjoyed by all other people swept up in war. The international community hates the Jewish state more than it cherishes Palestinian life. The claim that Israel is intentionally starving Gazans is a grotesque inversion of reality. In truth, Israel has handed out millions of meals while Hamas has used menace and violence to try to thwart this mass feeding in the hope that the sight of emaciated Gazans will lead once more to Israel being damned by the West as "genocidal." And that's exactly what has happened. (Spiked-UK) The Arab World The Arab League on Tuesday backed a declaration calling for Hamas to lay down its arms and end its rule in Gaza. In fact, most Arab countries have been on Israel's side and against Hamas since the start of the war. They recognize the dangers posed to their own countries by Hamas, a proxy of Iran and offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, both of which represent existential threats to them. We saw what happened when a two-state solution was tried in Gaza. The whole place was turned by Islamic jihadists into an engine of war and resulted in the horrors of Oct. 7. Is it reasonable to expect Jerusalem to repeat such a devastatingly failed experiment and extend it into the West Bank where the risks are far greater? When so many lives are at stake and Israel's very existence is under threat, hoping for the best is not going to cut it. The Israel-Palestinian conflict is not about land or Arab self-determination, it's a religious war to annihilate the Jewish state and always has been. British Prime Minister Starmer's proposal to recognize a non-existent state will harden Palestinian resolve against Israel and encourage Hamas to keep fighting. Following Starmer's proposal, a senior Hamas official wrote: "International support for Palestinian self-determination shows we are moving in the right direction....Victory and liberation are closer than we expected." The writer, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, was chairman of the UK's national crisis management committee, COBRA. (Telegraph-UK) Dandrawi Al-Hawary, editor of the Egyptian daily Al-Yawm Al-Sabi, which is close to the Egyptian regime, wrote on July 6, 2025: "It's puzzling that the people...assessing and analyzing the Oct. 7 attack, which [Hamas] calls the Al-Aqsa Flood...think that it was a great victory and that it advanced the Palestinian cause more than any of the previous rounds of war, resistance and negotiations over many decades!" "The Al-Aqsa Flood...[definitely] changed the reality, but in a frightening way. It drowned the region in a deadly tsunami that destroyed Gaza, harmed Al-Sham [Syria and Lebanon] and Iran....[Moreover,] it gave the [Arab] nation's main enemy, Israel, an opportunity to be perceived as a military power capable of imposing its will by force." "The Al-Aqsa Flood was indeed a flood. Whoever chose the name definitely achieved his goal of drowning [us]. This operation indeed drowned the region...and opened the gates of hell." (MEMRI) Observations: UN's Push for Palestinian Statehood Ignores Israel's Security Concerns - Herb Keinon (Jerusalem Post)
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